As the hour for his speech on South Africa approached, President Reagan must have wondered why he did not just go before the cameras, announce punitive sanctions against Pretoria and be done with it. Facing personal vilification around the world, placing his party at risk on a sensitive issue in an election year, he could have taken the path of least resistance, of political expediency, by leaping on the popular bandwagon of sanctions.
Instead, Mr. Reagan stuck to his current policy. Rather than strike an easy stance against apartheid, he told the nation, ”We must stay and work, not cut and run.”
That the policy has not worked yet doesn`t mean it is not working or will not work. Pretoria has moved far too slowly away from apartheid. But despite all this, Pretoria has abandoned significant portions of the legal framework of apartheid.
WATERBURY (CONN.) REPUBLICAN:
When it was passed by Congress in December 1985, and unwisely signed into law by the President, the latest national farm bill was audaciously called a
”reform” measure.
Yes, it will be expensive, supporters said, about $52 billion over three years, but the cost will gradually decline as incentives for food exports begin to take hold. As has so often been the case with the federal farm policy, this assessment couldn`t have been more wrong.
At an incredible cost, American taxpayers are mostly helping wealthy farmers sell their food products to Washington for storage, while looking overseas for food to put on the table. If this process didn`t take such a horrible toll every step of the way, it would almost be funny.
HUNTINGTON (IND.) HERALD-PRESS:
On the confirmation of Indiana`s Daniel Manion to be a lifetime judge on the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago:
Detractors of President Reagan will continue to harp about the credentials they think conservatives should have if they want liberal support to be confirmed as a federal judge.
Norman Lear`s group spent a bundle in an effort to untrack Manion`s confirmation. . . . With Jane Fonda, Ed Asner and the Kennedy clan waiting in the wings to . . . slay the next conservative dragon, the banging of the cup will be deafening. The highly vaunted 40 law deans that disapproved of Manion represented only 22 percent of the law schools that have American Bar Association approval. People for the American Way had to dredge the bottom of the barrel to find them.
This time the President put his personal prestige on the line for Manion. This time the Hoosiers won. And the Gipper won a big one, too.
HOUSTON CHRONICLE:
In Dallas, President Reagan bemoaned the ”hard times” in Texas. He cited decontrolling the price of oil as a sign his administration is committed to a strong domestic energy industry. ”Americans will never again be captive to a foreign oil cartel,” he said.
The next day in South Carolina, Reagan said that thanks in large measure to decontrol, energy prices have tumbled. ”Isn`t it good,” he asked, ”to pull into the station today and watch the gallons on the pump add up faster than the dollars?”
As we have said before, attempts by the Republicans to make political gain out of the hardships Texans are experiencing are likely to backfire.
The governor of Texas does not set the price of oil, and it is the falling price of oil on the world market that has hurt Texas` economy. This is no time for political games.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER:
In the Middle East, politics can be as fine-grained as the region`s shifting sands. On the surface, the political landscape appears unmarked by last week`s meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Morrocco`s King Hassan II but it may have set in motion forces for change that at the moment are barely perceptible.
Arabs and Israelis must at some point negotiate their differences if lasting Middle East peace ever is to materialize. The Morocco meeting is a small step in those shifting sands toward that most desirable political oasis.
